Thinking with the left half

When I first found this pic it took me a few minutes to figure it out, the way the woman was laying down that is. I am used too looking at photos upside down so ya it took me a few minutes to figure out the way she was laying. Anyways I thought it was very cool and wanted to share.




And this pic! Wow. Just amazing!





I am a huge fan of cropping and this one was brilliant! And whoever the model is, he has really long hair!




In other Raven news, I didn't want to jinx myself so I've been REALLY REALLY REALLY good about not blabbing that I'd ordered a Treadmill two weeks ago. Usually when I get my hopes up and blab about them they never work out and I end up depressed and bitchy. So ya Raven managed to keep her mouth shut and my treadmill came in yesterday!

So the story behind the treadmill you ask (even if you didn't ask or care you're gonna hear it anyways) Because of Raven's delicate and whimpy body I usually go for the non-impact exercises, I've owned a few elipitical machines. My first one was GREAT!!! I absolutely loved it! It had what was called a Spring Step, the tracks were unusally long and slighlty bowed upwards to give an extra "spring" to your step so you could work out longer. It was great! Unfortunately it broke and was unfixable and Raven was heartbroken because that model was no longer made.

Now I'm not rich but I try not to buy cheeper knockoffs of exercise machines, the first eliptical machine was a Pro Form, I'm big fan of Pro Form and it cost us about four hundred bucks and like I mentioned I used it until it broke. Well worth the money. After much shoping around and discovering the machines equivolent to the Spring Step were now running in the thousands of dollars, too rich for Raven's cheep nature blood. What I found instead was a machine by Image, it was okay, cost about three hundred bucks, it was rough to use and I found I didn't use as much as I did the Pro Form.

Now Clan Pena also has a Recumbant Bike also by Pro Form, it's very nice but we bought it about eight years ago so needless to say, we're bored with it. We still use it, but, well.... its boring.

I mananged to score through Free Cycle a Pilate's machine! Wow, it takes up alot of room for somthing so slender and I can really feel the difference after using it. I decided to get it because I've been told countless times to do Pilates to help strength my back, so what the heck, it was free and in pretty good condition. I also found my Gevalia Coffee maker on Free Cycle, it makes really good coffee!

Okay so now your thinking, Raven! Get to the point! Stay focused! What has this all to do with the treadmill??? Sheeeeseeee... Raven babbles too much....

Elz had been told about an ad in the paper at Big 5 sports store for a Pro Form treadmill. The Pro Form 415S. It had 10 varying speeds, EKG pulse rate monitor, fair sized tread track, the option of a 10% incline and could support up to 275 pounds, which means it won't wear out any time soon! It was originally priced $700.00 and with the coupon it was marked down to $400 bucks! Raven's first strike of bad luck, we don't subscribe to the newspaper so we were frantically calling everyone we knew who did but none of them saved the paper even though it was only a day later! Arrrggghhh!

I asked Lorraine at work and she said, no she'd already threw out the paper but the trash hadn't been picked up yet so she very thoughtfully dug through her trash and FOUND THE COUPON! Yay!!!

So Raven calls the store to ask if they had any more of these machines available and was told, nope, they didn't. So damn and double damn! And I felt bad for having had Lorraine dig through her trash for a coupon that was no good now. So Raven after work decides to go shoping around, I take the Pena boys with me and we go to Sears, Target, Wal-Mart, all of whom don't have this treadmill or only stocked really cheep knockoffs or were too expensive models to even think about buying. So I thought what the hell and stop by Big 5 and WTF!!!! They HAD THE TREADMILL on display on the floor! Ya Raven was not amused and corners a salesman and give him the run through and he says, oh, no we never have the stock on hand you have to have it ordered.

....

Nice.

Thanks for telling me on the phone.

Anyhoo I order the damn machine and the guy assures me I will have it at the sales price of $400.00 and it'd be in in a week's time. So now Raven is bursting at the seams to BRAG about my new treadmill that's on order!

But Raven keeps her mouth shut so as not to jinx my good luck.

A week goes by and we call and are told, oh no it won't be here for another week because it takes two weeks to get it from manufacture. It'll be here next week.

....

Again, Nice.

So I call again yesterday and low and behold! It was actually there!!! So Elz and I arrange for a truck so we can pick it up and bring it home. While waiting in line to pay for it Elz notices the box says, Pro Form 425 and not the 415S model we supposedly ordered. He points this out to the manager who is the man helping us. And since it's like 20 minutes til they close he says, well it has to be the same machine because its the only Pro Form treadmill we order. Well its not like we can take it out of the box and look at it cuz if you don't know already, treadmills are HUGE!!!!

I'm guessing to get rid of us since now it's ten minutes til closing the manager says, keep the receipt if you don't like the machine bring it back. So Elz and I spend the next two hours putting it together and no it's not the same machine. Its a nice machine and it folds up! Which I'm not sure if the 145S had that option. So now I have to go back to the store and compare the two to see if we should keep it or take it back. And ya I went to the Pro Form web site to try and compare but they don't have either model listed. Soooo.... this is where Raven stands right now.

But I did use it lastnight! It's cool! I've never used a treadmill before and OMG! It can really get going! Geeeze! Now Raven doesn't run because about seven years ago I used to have really large breasts, I'm talking triple D cup sizes, so no Raven never ran. Even after having a breast reduction procedure done I still don't run - at least not for recreation, besides it's hard on my back which is why I started out with the recumbent bike and elipitical machine, which btw we gave the elipitical machine to Rees to use becuase we only have so much room in the house for all this exercise machines! I'd rather have given away the bike but Elz said he'd still use it. Whatever.

So here we are AT LONG LAST at the end of Raven's treadmill story. The treadmill is cool, whether its like the one we were suppose to get I have yet to determine because even though it was on sale its not the one we ordered. I love the fact it folds up and has wheels to move it out of the way for it rests in the corner of the living room very nicely. Its nosiey! wow is it noisey when in use because all our other equipment was magnegtic resistance so it they were all silent.

I will have to get used to the impact of using it because I admit, my back is feeling the difference today and my hips are stiff and perhaps Raven will actually one day, RUN on this thing because it is powerfull enough to allow running. I'm just not used to running, blame it upon the lingering ghost of my former body image.

So there you have it! I'm quite proud I've managed to keep my mouth shut for the last two weeks. Ta!